Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 54, no. 1374: July 14, 1894

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Jaly 14, 1894 Record and Guide. ESTABLISHED-^MARpHSlii^ieeS, Dzv&teD to Rea^l Estate.SuiLoif/o 51^r,ci(itectur,e .KouseUoldDEGCSiATioii, BiTsiiJess Alio Themes of GErtERsl lr/TER.Esi. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published ecery Stdurday. Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370 Oommunloations sliould be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. 2. LIN^DSEY. Business Manager. Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street, Oi'p. Post Officb-H "Entered al llie Post-office at New Tork. If. T., as second-class matter." Vol. liv. JULY 14, 1894. No. 1,374 For additional Brooklyn viatter, see Brooklyn Department immediately followina X'ew Jersey records {page 68,. lY/TERCHANTS in severjil lines, particularly in diy-goods, -^-^ hure been agreeably sm-prised by tbe contents ot tbeir mail hi the pa.st week, M.iny of them who expected, if any- '■ thing, cancellations of orders already given as a result of the prevailing railroad troubles, found instead an encom-agiug num¬ ber of uew orders. In the iron trades wage-scale settlemeots have been achieved ivithout either the strikes or the lockouts that had beeu threatened, and those trades are so much bene¬ fited. Blast furnaces are producing more pig, while the stocks on hand show a tendency to decrease. Railroad manageie are to be congratulated on the results of the strike, uot, be it under¬ stood, because of anything they did to end it, but beeause an inevitable struggle has been closed ou terms so much to their advantage, and it bas been proved for them that they can man¬ age their own business without dictation from the Unions; the latter have also doubtless learned that it takes two to make any kind of a bargain. The combination of railroad employes that has just been broken cannot be put together again for some years to come, and meantime it is to be sincerely hoped that both sides will have found a more sane way of arriving at what should from time to time be due from one another. The stock market has taken both good and had news very coolly. Manipu¬ lation keeps the Industrials in the frout, but the public is in too critical and cautious a temper to accept such land of bait. Besides the investment issues in this class do uot move with the speculative. Cordage common goes up while the 6 per cent bonds go down to a 7^ per cent basis. Similar movements are to be detected elsewhere. The securities which show such discrepancies are just objects of siispiciou. Probably the wisest buying is found in the stocks .lud bonds of railroads which have seen their worst and have had not only the water but also a good deal of the substance squeezed out of them. This statement is borne out by tbe strength of the speculative bondlist. The out¬ look is encoui'aging even though the signs ot improvement be fuint. SIE AVILLIAM HARCOURT in presenting his budget showed that the fall in the prices of articles used in brewing in ten years had been something like 30 to 40 per cent, while the retail price for beer had remained unchanged. The brewers paid income tax ou profits of about 1^31,500,000 in 188i-85, and lately on about $50,500,000 of profits. This was a very effective argument for securing from the beer interests larger contribu¬ tions to the public revenues. Prices of commodities in Great Biitain continue to fall, the average on July 1st reaching the lowest limit yet known. Capital applications for the first half of the year were 20 per cent better than they were in the same time in 1893. The uumber of failures were 6,118 for the half year against 5,837 for the corresponding period of last year. Drinking champagne may seem a peculiar result of hard times, yet it is apparently what France experienced. Recent figures, covering the period since the Baring failui-e, showed that the exports of champagne di'opped from 21,699,000 bottles iu 1890 to 17,359,000 bottles in 1893, while the home consumption in the same time increased from 4,077,000 to 4,876,000 bottles, so that 800,000 more bottles were consumed in France in the bad year of 1893 .than in the good one of 1890, while foreigners drank very much less. Aiistria-H ngary proceeds with much deliberation in carrying out the agreed currency reform. It has beeu decided that the obligation of the public to receive the one fiorin notes shall cease on January 1, 1895; the public ofidces will take them for six months longer. In the meantime, govern¬ ment, post and banking offices will hold back the notes coming to them and replace them with silver coi'is. The latest date for their redemption will be December 31, 1899, so that the new centui-y will see this reform practically only begun." Reports of the rye crop of the dual empire are very unfavorable. Prices are firm in all the European security markets, and there are indi¬ cations that money will soon begin to flow away from London, where it has been accumulating at such a rapid rate for some time past, which will mean that there is growing up a new use for it. The Business Depression and tbe Eastward Movement. HISTORY, of course, always has the advantage of hind-sight, and by and by when Histoiy comes to review the events of the last eighteen months certainly it will comment upon the fact that the popular estimation of the financial depression that com¬ menced in 1893 was from the very first remarkably insufficient. One has only to recallthe judgments upon the situation delivered from day to day during the last year by commercial men, even those well informed, or tiu'n to those diurnal newspaper effu¬ sions that dealt with Wall street affairs and the conditions of the different mercantile markets, to be imtiiesscd strongly with the fact that the people of this country have had all along a very inadequate conception of the nature and the extent of the crisis through which they are still passing. People have persisted in re.garding the depression as the effect of a sudden, violent and arbitary cause. In the beginning of trouble it was supposed that the nation had unexpectedly but avoidably slipped upon its silver policy. " Repeal the Sherman act" was the cry last summer, and " that done," said everybody, " the nation will speedily resume its hale and prosperous con¬ dition." Unquestionably this was the popular diagnosis. The Sherman act was repealed, but, as we all appreciate, contraiy to prophecy prosperity did not retuni. Indeed, far from it. Busi¬ ness in the Fall of 1893 was in many respects more discourag¬ ing than it had beeu in the summer. The industrial machinery of the country was rather slackened than accelerated iu pace, and as month after month went by without bringing in any improvement, people relinquished those glowing expectations which they had attached to the repeal of the silver pur¬ chasing act. A revision of judgment was necessary. Cling¬ ing still to the notion that the depression was the result of some single accidental disturbance, it was declared that the tariff agitation was really the effective cause of the prolonged commercial stagnation. This idea has been disseminated so volubly that it is now accepted without objection, even by those who at flrst opposed it for political reasons. A few persons, perhaps, hold that the evil that the Sherman act did lives after it, but the ma,iority, beyond doubt, are of the opiuion that but for the Tariff revision in Washiugton something approaching a normal condition of business would have been restored ere this day. The disturbers at the Capitol of the economic peace of their country are now, in all probability, nearing the eud of their riot¬ ous proceedings, and it will be interesting to wituess whether popular expectations of a commercial revival will foUowthe set¬ tlement of the tariff'controversy. We believe there will be a large measure of disappointment for the country, not because it was not a wise step to repeal the Sherman act nor because it will not be positively beneficial to end for a time the wearisome and selfish bickering about the tariff, hut because, in oui' opiuion, the mercantile inactivity ot tbe last year is not primaiily the consequence of crude experiments with silver or political wrang¬ ling over schedules of duties. Silver and thetariffimdoubtedly bave played their part in producing bad times; but they were at most what the doctors term "contributory" causes; Ihey were not the efficient causes. For the latter we must leok elsewhere. That a nation advances through a series of impulses is a trite observation. The example of the pendulum as an illustration of the course of all human affairs is so old that it can be used only with a strong prayer to the reader for indulgence. Never¬ theless nothing is more certain than the fact that a people do move along their career not iu au unbroken steady progression, but in a succession of advances, each step forward being followed by retrogression as the force of each impulse is expended. The .swaying of a pendulum does represent the char¬ acter of the movement, with this important difference; the pendnlum returns to its original starting point, whereas in the oscillation of humau affairs the initial position is not again resumed. This vibratory action is observable in all the activi¬ ties of mankind, but it seems to be particularly marked in the mercantile affairs of nations. Favorable conditions arrive to promote the industrial activity of a people. The forward move¬ ment at first is comparatively slow; it gathers force, enterprise creates enterprise, expansion is accelerated, each success achieved leads to larger euterprises, manufacturers enlarge their works, increase their machinery aud the number of hands they employ, wages advance, storekeepers branch out, debts increase, all cilculatious are made on an enlarged scale. Society from high to low moves to a. more and more extravagant measure, expansiou is the order of the time—the entire com¬ mercial world orders its afi'airs as though continuous indefinite progression was possible. AU this would go veiT well if expan-